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They brought in helmets and drilled wooden pallets to secure their camp. They wore goggles for tear gas and went over what to do when they got arrested. The cause is that important to them, organizers said. One said they were willing to return and continually get arrested until the UA commits to divesting from Israel.

The problem? It’s illegal for the university to do so.

ÃÛèÖÖ±²¥ is one of 38 states in the country with specific laws making it illegal for state agencies to divest from Israel. The bill prohibiting state and local governments from divesting was first signed into law in 2016, with an update in 2022 that specifically bars the state’s public universities and community colleges from divesting.

“ÃÛèÖÖ±²¥ and Israel have been longtime allies and trade partners, as has been the United States of America with Israel,â€� said Kimberly Yee, the state’s treasurer, who is a Republican elected to the post and a former state senator who worked on the 2016 legislation.

“These types of bills are intended to support our friends (in) Israel as well as to continue to partner with them in a way that would protect their economic viability and stability, as well as really acknowledge their sovereignty,� Yee said.

What does divestment mean?

In simple terms, divestment means selling holdings deemed questionable. An example was when universities, buckling to the demands of student protesters in the 1980s, sold stock of companies that did business with South Africa when it was an apartheid state.

Divesting from Israel can mean a plethora of things. The Students Against Apartheid group, which has organized the encampments and leads the divestment effort at the UA, is demanding the university divest from all companies “profiting from the occupation of Palestine, the genocide of people in the Gaza strip,� but also diverges widely to add in “the militarization of the US/Mexico borderlands/unceded O’odham and Pascua Yaqui territories.�

The group is also demanding that the UA disclose all financial connections to Israel and to weapons manufacturing, including to ÃÛèÖÖ±²¥-based Raytheon Missiles & Defense.

A spokesperson for the university declined to comment for this article but in the past has said the UA’s senior leadership team is aware of the demands.

Do protesters know UA can’t meet their demands?

The encampment organizers are aware of the state law prohibiting public universities from divesting from Israel, a media spokesperson told the Star. But they contend the law itself is illegal.

“It’s such a blatant violation of the First Amendment it’s almost laughable,� said Max, a graduate student at the UA who would not give his last name, saying he fears retaliation. “The only reason it’s still standing is that nobody has appealed it in its current form. I would urge the university to break this law and appeal it.�

Max added that the group decided to camp out at the university and not, for example, the state Capitol, because they are “more focused on what’s happening at the UA.� He said that if the university were to break state law and divest, he thinks it would ultimately win an appeal.

How else has this law taken effect?

This is not the first time divestment has been an issue in ÃÛèÖÖ±²¥, though more recently, the state decided to divest from a company because of its pro-Palestinian roots.

In 2021, as state treasurer, Yee divested $143 million from all state-related investments involving Unilever, the parent company of Ben and Jerry’s ice cream company, after the sweet treats business decided to boycott Israel by refusing to sell their product in the West Bank.

Yee said that after she pulled out from Unilever, other states, including New York and Florida, followed suit.

In October, Yee increased the state’s holdings of Israel bonds after the Oct. 7 Hamas attack on Israel, Chamber Business ÃÛèÖÖ±²¥ reported. At that point, the ÃÛèÖÖ±²¥ State Treasurer’s Office had about $15 million in holdings in Israel bonds, much of which were purchased under Yee, the publication said.

Although she supports making political investment decisions such as the Unilever choice, Yee has spoken out against judging investments based on corporations’ environmental, social and governance policies.

She said the state treasurer’s office has a recent policy affirming it will not make investment decisions “from a social perspective.�

“I’ve always said that these types of policies do not belong in the investment space because they really do affect the consumer,� Yee said. “We just want to make money.�